Many utilities have begun to implement frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) communications in a mesh network of metering devices. Some FHSS implementations operate in a synchronous mode in which receiving devices are substantially continuously synchronized with transmitting devices in time or frequency. Such synchronous implementations typically require the use of expensive clock circuitry and produce significant amounts of data traffic as a result of the overhead required to maintain time within the system. Other FHSS implementations operate in a self-synchronous mode in which receiving devices are not at all times synchronized with transmitting devices in time or frequency. In such self-synchronous implementations, a receiving device scans a number of frequencies in the hop sequence in order to detect a preamble signal on one of the frequencies. Once detected, the receiving device will attempt to lock onto that channel, and the two devices will then begin hopping in sequence. While such self-synchronous systems do not require expensive clock circuitry and avoid the overhead to require substantially constant synchronization, such systems do typically require a long preamble to be transmitted in order to provide sufficient opportunity for a receiver to scan and lock onto a channel. This itself may result in significant data overhead.